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I went to the Wall Street Game last night at about 9pm to play in the .50/1 NLHE cash game that followed the $2k WSOP super satellite tournament. I chose to skip the satellite because I cannot garauntee that I can make a $2k event, but I love me some pokah, so when I found out there was a seat open for the cash game, I jumped at it.

I've said it before and it's becoming more and more of a mantra for me: Losing begets losing. It's the flipsize of the much sunnier mantra, Winning begets winning, but after my $200 loss for charity, the Losing mantra was more present.

As we sat down, there were a few overlapping players from the charity game. Paul in the Hamily was there, as was Wendy. I asked if I were the big loser of the charity game and found out that Darko found a way to lose more than me. That guy can't let me win anything. I talked about the game and about my inability to reign in my speculative play. Part of me felt that I was giving up too much information to the table, for a reason that actually is sub-part A to the Losing mantra. It reads.

Losing Mantra; "Losing Begets Losing"

Sub Part-A; Discussing losses encourages other players to play back at you more, thereby creating further losses.

There have been many times, usually live, when a player is lamenting their bad luck. If I hear that, I'm like a shark smelling blood in the water. I know my opponent is psychologically injured and therefore is probably not playing his/her optimal game. Almost as important, people perceive the complainer's luck as poor, so getting all-in against a guy with bad luck is a very tempting proposition. This, of course, is the converse of another of my core beliefs, a sub-part of the Winning Mantra.

Winning Mantra; "Winning Begets Winning"

Sub Part-A; Winning often causes one's opponents to think that the winner is "lucky". "Lucky" players are perceived by the average player as more dangerous than skilled players, and therefore, when perceived as "lucky" players will be more inclined to believe your bets and fold to you accordingly...resulting in more wins.

Okay, that was all a tangent. The long and short of it was that I lost two buy-ins at the Wall Street Game, for a total of $220, or $420 within the last two nights. Most of my dough at the WSG was lost on two hands, which I will recreate to the best of my ability here. The first may be a cooler. The second, though, was classic losing begetting losing.

The first buy-in was lost within the first few orbits. I had decided to use my perceived loser status to my advantage by playing tight. Since I expected more players to play back at me, I figured I could utilize the Losing Mantra, Sub Part-A to my advantage.

So, with AA, I raised to $5 nonchalantly from UTG. I expected at least one caller and got two, Michael, who incidentally was also at the charity game, and a player who would become insignificant by showdown.

The flop was Q and two low cards, with two hearts. I think I bet out $8, trying to keep my opponents in the hand. I figured that my hand was still ahead at the time and I wanted to build a pot. Let me add that in cash games, the goal is to maximize big hands, whereas in tournaments, the goal is usually to protect big hands, so in a tournament, I'd bet significantly higher.

I think both players called and we saw the turn, Ace of hearts. The good news was that I had top set; the bad news is that the Ace of hearts completed a flush draw. I think I checked, hoping to look weak. Michael bet $10 and when it folded to me, I raised to $30. He pushed all-in and I thought it out for a bit. There was a chance he hit his flush, but I also thought that AQ or QQ were possibilities. I mulled it over for a minute or so and ultimately decided to call, knowing full well that I had redraws to a full house if necessary. Frankly, though, I didn't think I would need it. Yeah. I was wrong. He had 67h or something similar for a flush, and I missed the river.

The table seemed pretty rocked by it, but I just took it in stride. In fact, I found everyone's sympathy to be more annoying than the loss. Several hands later, Wendy out of nowhere brought up the hand again, in a friendly manner, by saying, "That AA hand was a cooler." Frankly, I disagree. I could've gotten away from it. But, even worse, I had thought I had put the fucking hand behind me, so when she brought it up again, I found myself fairly aggitated.

Ironically, the truth probably was that on some subconscious level, the table was picking up on my frustration. After all, I had talked about my losses from the night before just minutes before that hand. Everyone was being kind, and while I thought I was putting on a, "That's Poker!" attitude, I probably was also sending out some, "Fuckin' A" vibes, even if I was only vocalizing the former.

It was a good while later when I lost my second buy-in. Since the AA hand, I had loosened up, one of the central reasons for the Losing Mantra. I wasn't getting involved in too many pots post-flop because I couldn't hit shit, but I called more than my share of preflop raises with speculative crap. Finally, I was dealt KK UTG or UTG+1 and decided to really fuck myself.

I limped. Yep. Limped. I figured that there was a lot of raising at the table, so I'd be better off check-raising out of position to build a big pot against one player. The logic was fairly sound, given the frequency of preflop raises and the fact that players were calling preflop raises and usually folding to re-raises. But...well, I should've raised, plain and simple...because about 8 players saw the flop for cheap.

And it was all low cards this time, with two diamonds. I believe it may've been 456. I can't remember the full sequencing of the action, but either I may've checked. Alceste bet out $10, or so, got called by a few players, and then I raised to $30, leaving myself only $30 or so behind. Or, maybe it was that I bet out and got a lot of callers and then check-raised the turn. I can't really remember much other than getting all-in with Alceste. When he showed his 78o, for the flopped straight, I knew that I had fucked myself on this one. In fact, I announced it to the table along with my hand, which had already hit the muck, stood up and said my farewells.

Boo hoo hoo. Jordan lost at poker.

Fuck it, I say. Losing is part of the game, and while it may burn at times, I just did my best to see past it. Losses happen. I'm stil up for the year, albeit a fraction of my goal, and I'm still well up over my lifetime. If I can't take losing a couple of hundo on back to back nights, I should play lower stakes or not at all.

Losing begets losing. I think that much is true. But it is not an absolute. My goal, now, is to turn it around. To win.

Next weekend, I'll be heading to AC Friday night with Dave Roose. My last trip to AC was a rousing success, so I hope that I can use that win to beget more wins.

Anyone else have any general sayings or thoughts they'd like to throw around about the phenomenom of losing begetting losing and winning begetting winning? I'm not the only one who has suffered this phenomoenom, so don't be shy.

5 Comments:

When you are in a *losing* mindset, you often get away from your game. This means that you are likely to make more mistakes than you normally would. And we all know that mistakes lead to losses in the long run. When you are in a *winning* mindset, your confidence is high. You make stronger decisions, which leads to people thinking that your hands are stronger than perhaps they are. When you are in a *winning* mindset, you are less likely to be distracted by negative thoughts.

Losing does not have to beget a losing mindset. It obviously can. However you can also say "Eh, Just another game" and shrug it off as poker and keep a winning mindset. I think this is something I am learning this year as I play. Hopefully it will make a big difference.

Losing only begets losing if you're a loser... loser. Get your mind right!

GL turnin' it around in Atlantic City! Do yourself a favor, and don't start your session there with banter about your bad luck.

I think CK's comment is spot on. No offense toward your specific play last night, but I think a better mindset would've lead to different results. I.E, Permitted you to fold your top set to the shove of your check/raise, rather than call of your stack when you had ample reason to believe villain had made the flush. (Or better yet, the right mindset would've allowed you to bet out with your set to get the same information for a far cheaper price than the check raise.) And, I'm sort of assuming that when you're at your best you're a better player than one that limps kk from ep, but is unable to get away from just one pair when there's heavy action. The post sure appears to illustrate a player without his 'A' game.